Athens, National Archaeological Museum

Q637187

That was not very clever: visiting the National Archaeological Museum on the last day of a two week trip through northern and central Greece. Of course, it was a nice summary of everything we’ve seen, but I think it would have been better to start over here. Ever a teacher, I might have used the museum’s splendid collection of sculpture to explain to my companions the development of Greek art.

That’s what you’ll find on the first floor: lots of sculpture in a series of rooms surrounding a large hall, which is devoted to Mycenaean art. There, you will find the golden objects from Mycenae that Schliemann found. The sculpture rooms surround it. Your tour starts with some kouroi and you can easily follow the growth to greater accuracy in representing the human body. When you’ve finished about a third of your tour, the Greek sculptors have mastered every aspect of anatomy, and you will pass along many classical sculptures, including two dazzling copies of the Diadumenus and the Cnidian Aphrodite. After that, more sculpture: the fourth century, Hellenism, and finally the Roman age.

On the ground floor, there’s also a series of rooms that contain metal art. Here, you will see the Anticythera Mechanism, but also collections of arrowheads from Marathon and Thermopylae. The Egyptian part – also on the ground floor – is a bit odd in a museum dedicated to Greek art, but the collection is too small to be exposed in a museum of its own and too important to keep stored away. In the Hellenistic part of the Egyptian collection, I noticed a statue of Hephaestion that I had never seen before.

Upstairs, you will find a marvelous collection of pottery and some objects that don’t fit anywhere else, like the Lemnian inscription, written in a language related to Etruscan. Next to it is a section dedicated to the investigations at Santorini, where some splendid frescoes have been found.

Do not forget to visit the basement. There’s a little café with a garden, where you will see some of the sculptures found in the Anticythera wreck. They have a certain beauty because they are partly eroded. I found the giant Heracles absolutely fascinating.

This museum was visited in 1989, 1992, 2004, 2007, 2010.

76 pictures related to this museum

Artemisium, Statue of Zeus	Lemnos, Tombstone of an Etruscan (?) warrior	Argos, Relief of the Doryphorus of Polykleitos	Eleusis, Temple F, Cecrops and Herse
Athens, Statue of a Minotaur	Alexandria, Hephaestion (part of a group with Alexander)	Eleusis, Tombstone of a warrior	Zeus and Ganymedes
Thermopylae, Arrowheads	Aegina, Ptolemy VI Philometor	Mycene, Wall painting ("La Parisienne")	Athens, Kerameikos, Skull of Myrthis
Lycian portrait of Omphale	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Palladion	Athens, Stoa of Attalus, Attalus II Philadelphus	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Head of Hera
Sais, Temple of Neith, Statuette	Mycene, Wall painting of a griffin with a warrior	Athens, Varvakeion Athena	Athens, Agora, Late Geometric pyxis
Dodona, Figurine of Zeus Keraunos	Thebes, Tombstone	Mycene, Boar's tusk helmet	Corinth, Plate with Demeter
Larisa, Tombstone of Polyxena	Eleusis, Relief of Demeter, Triptolemus, and Kore	Eucratides II of Bactria	Athens, Temple of Zeus, Portrait of Polemo of Laodicea
Argos, Heraion, Sima	Argos, Theater, Statue of Aphrodite	Marathon, Arrowheads	Mycene, House of the Warrior Krater, Warrior Krater
Smyrna, Portrait of Caligula, reworked to resemble Titus	Chalcis-Vromousa, Head of a woman (Roman copy of a Greek original)	Pharsalus, Krater with a four-horse chariot	Sparta, Statue of Julia Aquilia Severa, damaged after her death
Decree of Tefnakht	Aegina, Tombstone of a young man, holding a bird	Eleusis, Relief of a drunk Heracles	Athens, Pnyx, Lenormant Athena
Thebes, Head of Artemis	Nysa, Bouleuterion, "Little Refugee"	Oropos, Aeolian-Ionic capital	Megiste, Bellerophon sarcophagus.
Lead figurine of Athena	Piraeus, Funerary stela of Damasistrate	Piraeus, Votive stela of a reclining Dionysus	Megara, Statue of Dionysus
Athens, Kerameikos, Dipylon krater	Alexandria, Alexander the Great (part of a group with Hephaestion)	Athens, Kerameikos, Base of the statue of a wrestler	Lebadeia, Relief of Trophonius
Olympia, Head of the boxer Satyros	Melos, Statue of Poseidon	Epidauros, Temple of Artemis, Nike	Piraeus, Head of a bearded god
Aegina, Temple of Apollo, Statue of a wounded warrior	Piraeus, Julian the Apostate	Mycene, Dagger with lion hunt	Hellenistic ruler
Piraeus, Theater, Head of Dionysus (classicizing)	Piraeus, Funerary stela with ball players	Argos, Heraion, Amazonomachy	Corinth, Relief of a hoplite
Eretria, Gymnasium, Statue of Cleonicus	Piraeus, Statue of a woman or Demeter	The fight for the body of Patroclus.	Eretria, Lekythos (Bosanquet Painter)
Gomphoi, Relief of Odysseus and Amphicleia	Larisa, Tombstone of a man with a hat	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of antelopes	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of boxers
Athens, Kerameikos, Siren	Athens, Kerameikos, Alexander with a Lion's Pelt	Thebes (?), Block statue of Prince Horwedja, governor and high priest in Heliopolis	Megara, Statue of a Roman emperor (Trajan or Hadrian)